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You may be wondering why you don’t see the typical stats on this page. Stats like ERA, W-L, WHIP, BA, RBI, etc. Well, I’ll tell you why. These stats don’t tell you the truth about how good a player really is or how bad they are. If you see a player with 115 RBI and a player with 75 RBI you might think that the former is better. That isn’t always the case though. Typically the player who has 115 RBI is presented with more opportunities to get the RBIs, they are usually placed third or fourth in the line-up. If you don’t believe me you can either pick up a copy of Tom Tango’s copy of The Book: Playing The Percentages in Baseball or go to his website Inside The Book. W-L is also a stat that can go away forever, especially with how the game is today. A prime example is what Felix Hernandez and Francisco Liriano did last year. Hernandez did get his dues by winning the CY Young but many people disagreed, although it’s arguable that Liriano was the best pitcher in the AL last year. Hernandez 2010: 3.04 FIP, 3.14 xFIP, 6.2 WAR, 8.36 K/9, 2.52 BB/9. You may wonder what some of those stats mean but I will address them later on and you can find them down below. If you are curious to see how Francisco Liriano’s stats compare head to Fangraphs
Batting Stats:

Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP): BABIP is a stat that determines how lucky or unlucky a batter or pitcher is. For a hitter BABIP tells you how often a ball in play goes for a hit. The typical BABIP is usually around .300. If a player has a BABIP of .240 then he’s getting fairly unlucky and should expect to regress back to his career BABIP rates fairly soon. Same goes for if the BABIP is extremely high, for example .345.

Isolated Power (ISO): This is one my favorite stats. This stat shows us how often a player gets an extra base it. It’s easy to find as well. All you do is subtract slugging percentage from batting average. League average is around .145 – .150.On Base Percentage (OBP): OBP is exactly what it sounds like. It shows how often a batter gets on base and is much better then average because it includes walks and hit by pitches.

Strikeout Percentage (K%): This is another easy metric. This measure how often a player strikes out. It’s used in percentage form and the lower the percent the less often the player strikes out.

Weighted Runs Above Average (wRAA): wRAA is a statstics that is based off of wOBA. It tells how many runs a certain player has produced throughout the year. League average is 0. Last year Joey Votto had the highest wRAA, his was 61.3 meaning he produced 61.3 runs for the Reds last year. Cesar Izturis had the worst wRAA, his was -29.9.

Weighted On Base Average (wOBA): The main concept of wOBA is that all hits aren’t equal. For example a triple is worth more then a single, which makes sense. In simple terms wOBA is on the same scale as OBP. For example .375 is a really good OBP, since wOBA is on the same scale that means .375 is also a really good wOBA. If you are interested in learning more either head to Fangraphs or Inside The Book

Walk Percentage (BB%): This, like K% is used in percent form and tells you often a player walks. If the percent is higher then that’s how often the player walks.

Weighted Runs Created/+ (wRC/+): wRC is a statistic that attempts to show a players true value on offensive and it is measured in runs. wRC+ is used to show how a player’s wRC compares against the league average. 100 is league average and any point above or below is either above or below the average. For example if someone has a 150 wRC+ then he’s 50% better then league average at creating runs. I will be using wRC+ in my posts rather then wRC.

Pitching Stats:

Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP): FIP shows us what a pitcher’s ERA should eventually be after a certain time period. FIP, unlike ERA uses only things a pitcher can control. Those are homeruns, hit by pitches, strikeouts and walks. League average FIP is usually around 3.15-3.20.
Fielding Independent Pitching Minus (FIP-): If you’re not super crazy about advanced stats then FIP- might be what you want to use. All FIP- does is tell how good a pitcher is while being compared to league average. 100 is average and any point above or below represents a percent. Example if Pitcher A had a 80 FIP- then his FIP was 20% better then the league average.

Home Runs Per 9 Innings (HR/9): HR/9 just tells you how many home runs a pitcher gives up per 9 innings.

Left On Base Percentage (LOB%): LOB% tells us the percentage of runners that a pitcher leaves on base throughout the season. The typical league average is around 70%.
Strikeouts Per 9 Innings (K/9): K/9 is a rate stat that shows you how many strikeouts a pitcher gets over the course of a game. The average pitcher strikes out twice as many as he walks.

Strikeouts to Walk Ratio (K/BB): K/BB is just used to show the pitchers ratio of strike outs to walks. Like I mentioned before the league average pitcher has a 2/1 K/BB ratio.

Walks Per 9 Innings (BB/9): BB/9 is also a rate stat that shows how many walks a pitcher gives up throughout a game.

Other:

Wins Above Replacement (WAR): WAR is a statistic that is used to show how many more wins Player A is over a replacement minor league player. For example, during Joe Mauer’s MVP season he posted a 7.9 WAR. That means he was worth 7.9 wins over the course of the seasons. League average WAR is 2.0.